Biography

Jon Froehlich is an Assistant Professor in Human-Computer Interaction within the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research focuses on designing, building, and evaluating interactive technology that addresses high value social issues such as environmental sustainability, computer accessibility, and personal health and wellness. Jon earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington (UW) in 2011 where he was a Microsoft Research Graduate Fellow, the winner of the 2009 UW Environmental Innovation Challenge, and the 2010 UW College of Engineering Research Innovator of the Year. His PhD dissertation entitled Sensing and Feedback of Everyday Activities to Promote Environmental Behaviors won numerous awards including the UW Graduate School Distinguished Dissertation Award and an honorable mention for the 2012 Council of Graduate Schools Distinguished Dissertation Award in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering. As part of his PhD work, Jon co-invented HydroSense—a non-intrusive water usage sensing system that identifies individual water activities (e.g., dishwasher use, toilet flush, shower) from a single sensing point. This system was licensed to Belkin, Inc. where it's being developed under the name “Echo Water.” Jon has over 30 scientific peer-reviewed publications in many top venues including CHI, UbiComp, IJCAI, MobiSys and ICSE garnering two best paper awards and three best paper nominations. Jon is a member of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL), the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), and a co-founder of the HCIL Hackerspace and the HCIL lablet: the Makeability Lab.